News

With the fate of the Chesapeake Bay’s oyster population in question, stakeholders ranging from watermen to environmentalists hope to look past any differences to reach a common goal—enhance the shellfish resource and fishery.

“Low oxygen areas in the ocean are expanding at an alarming rate and will affect fisheries and ecosystem diversity,” said Mike Roman. “It’s essential to look at problems that will occur the next decades and to advise governments on ways to coordinate research to solve them.”

Horn Point celebrates a year of volunteer work. Fifteen dedicated volunteers contributed 1,200 hours to Bay research at the Horn Point Laboratory in 2016. Essential tasks included feeding sturgeon and monitoring the water quality in their tank, sorting marsh grass by species and counting attached insect larvae, organizing an insect collection, counting phytoplankton under a microscope, and growing copepods in the lab.

Tom Fisher and his UMCES team are working directly with farmers and residents on the Eastern Shore to measure the impacts of best management practices like cover crops and steam buffers on water quality.